Geography of Bridgeport, Connecticut

• Bridgeport Harbor is one of three (with New Haven and New London) major ports in Connecticut. It is formed by the confluence of Johnson's Creek, Yellow Mill Pond, and the Pequonnock River, and is the main outlet for the Great Meadows salt marsh in Stratford. In Colonial times it was known as "Newfield Harbor." Its large size—relative to the volume of the three small streams that empty into it—is attributable to the fact that, prior to the Wisconsin glaciation, it formed the mouth of the Housatonic River.
• Lewis Gut is a tidal strait that separates the Great Meadows marsh from Long Beach/Pleasure Beach. It takes its name from Benjamin Lewis, who cultivated oysters in its waters in the 19th century.
• Johnson's Creek is the estuary of Bruce Brook, at the easterly edge of the city and the westerly limit of the Great Meadows. It is named for the Johnson family, who assembled two large farms on either bank from the small holdings of the "New Field" in the early 19th century. A tide mill was built here shortly after the settlement of Stratford in 1639 (the mill pond backed up waters all the way to Stratford Avenue). In Colonial times it was known as Nessumpaws Creek, Neesingpaws Creek, or even Knees-and-Paws Creek.
• Walker's Creek (aka Power House Channel) was a tidal outlet from a salt marsh that was filled in to form Newfield and Jessup Parks. It survives today in truncated form as the outlet of the East End Sewage Treatment Plant.
• Yellow Mill Pond forms the estuary of Old Mill Brook. In 1792 its waters were dammed for the construction of a major tide mill, four stories in height, that was painted yellow. It burned in 1884 (the foundation can still be seen on the southwest side of the Stratford Avenue Bridge) and the dam was deconstructed shortly afterwards.
• Berkshire Mill Pond was the site of another tide mill at the confluence of the Pequonnock River and Island Brook. The milldam was constructed in 1786 just to the south of the Berkshire Avenue Bridge. The pond was largely filled in the 1940s and '50s for the construction of a shopping center, two drive-in movie theaters, and a collection of automobile junk yards. A small remnant remains.
• Black Rock Harbor is the located in the westerly portion of the city between Seaside Park and Black Rock. Its upper reaches penetrate the West End. In Colonial times this was considered the deepest and best port in Connecticut west of New London. It was able to accommodate ships of up to 1000 tons right up to the main wharves at the foot of the present Brewster Street. The harbor was protected on its south and east flanks by a Fayerweather Island that then included what is now the west end of Seaside Park. To the west and south was another landmass known as Lewis Island, which washed away during the course of the 18th century leaving only the treacherous shoal known as Penfield Reef. After the bar across the mouth of Bridgeport Harbor was dredged in the mid-19th century, Black Rock Harbor slipped into secondary importance.
• Cedar Creek is a navigable waterway through the city's West End that connects with Black Rock Harbor. In its natural state it was very similar to Lewis Gut in the East End and separated a salt marsh from a barrier beach (the present Seaside Park). Beginning in 1878, dikes were constructed and the marshlands drained and filled and the waterway turned into a virtual canal to create a second harbor for a new factory district, under the auspices of P.T. Barnum.
• Burr Creek was a northerly arm of Cedar Creek that extended as far as Fairfield Avenue. In the 1940s the portion above Yacht Street was filled, and the P.T. Barnum and Evergreen apartment complexes were constructed on the new land. The creek took its name from a 17th-century settler; Burr Road (which formerly included the present Dewey Street and Briarwood Avenue) ran down to its headwaters. A westerly embayment that abuts Ellsworth Field is known as "Brewster's Cove" after Captain Caleb Brewster, whose homestead it adjoined.
• Ash Creek forms the western limit of the Black Rock neighborhood and separates it from Fairfield. In Colonial times it was known as the "Uncoway River" and formed the main harbor of Fairfield, until the construction of a causeway across it permitted access to the deeper harbor at Black Rock in the 1760s. Although numerous theories have been advanced by historians as to the origins of the name, it is likely that it comes from the red ash trees (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) that are common to this day along its banks.
• Bridgeport Bight is the collective name for that portion of Long Island Sound offshore from the city between Stratford Point in Stratford and Penfield Reef off Fairfield. In former times these waters were known to have the largest natural-growth oyster beds on the East Coast north of the Chesapeake, source of a major industry in Bridgeport in the 19th and early-20th century.

• Fayerweather Island is a 7+1⁄2-acre wooded island in Long Island Sound connected to Seaside Park by a seawall and forming a natural adjunct to it. The island is the site of the Black Rock Harbor Light.
• Pleasure Beach (formerly known as Steeplechase Island), is a 71-acre (sometimes) island located in Long Island Sound, to the south of city's East End, and is connected by the Long Beach sandspit to Stratford, Connecticut.
• Great Marsh Island is a 14-acre island located near the mouth of Ash Creek in the Black Rock neighborhood.
• South Island (aka 'Lovers Island')is a half-acre island in Bunnell's Pond created by dredging in the 19th century, connected to the mainland by the stone Henry Setzer Memorial Bridge. A corresponding "North Island" became a peninsula with additional dredging in the early 20th century.

• Lake Forest (aka Island Brook Reservoir, elevation 165 feet) was created for municipal water supply in 1866 by damming Island Brook. In 1937, after the creation of Easton, Aspetuck, and Hemlock Reservoirs, the 71.4-acre lake had become surplus property, and the watershed lands surrounding it were laid out as a suburban housing development.
• Charcoal Pond (aka Island Brook Lagoon, elevation 154 feet) lies just below Lake Forest and was created at the same time for purposes of filtering the city's drinking water. Its surface area covers 4.5 acres.
• Bunnell's Pond (elevation 34 feet) was created in 1828 by damming the Pequonnock River to supply water power to a woolen mill that manufactured carpeting. To the south and west was a mill village that was named Thatchersville, after its progenitor, Daniel Thatcher (the Bunnell family succeeded him). It became the first source of municipal drinking water in 1854. The dam gave way in a flood in 1905 and was replaced by the current structure. It covers 33.4 acres.
• Lake Success (elevation 47 feet) came into being in 1906 as part of "Powder Park," a 422-acre forested area (known today as 'Remington Woods') that was used to store gunpowder and munitions of the Remington Arms Company a safe distance away from the city's residential areas. The 25-acre lake impounds the water of Old Mill Brook.
• Stillman's Pond (elevation 21 feet) was made by damming Old Mill Brook in 1812 to power a mill operated by Wyllis Stillman that manufactured shirts for the New York City market. The dam and seven-acre pond were reconfigured when the Remington Arms Company Russian Rifle Plant was erected adjoining it in 1915. The water power at this location powered a grist mill beginning in 1652, the "old mill" commemorated in the names of Old Mill Green and Old Mill Hill.
• Pembroke Lake (elevation 8 feet) was created by P.T. Barnum in 1862 as part of his real estate development in East Bridgeport. He erected a dam across the upper reaches of the tidal, salt-water Yellow Mill Pond, causing it to fill with fresh water as a pleasant adjunct to "Lake Village," a suburban community that was laid out along Seaview Avenue between Huron Street and Ogden Street Extension. Much of this lake has been filled in for industrial development.
• Bruce Pond (elevation 16 feet) was created by damming Bruce Brook (aka Stony Brook) at the Bridgeport-Stratford line in 1889. Its main purpose was as a source of ice, cut during the winter months to cool the city's iceboxes. It formerly extended north as far as Barnum Avenue.
• Asylum Pond (elevation 26 feet) was dug out of a swampy area in the late 1860s to water cattle on what was the Town Poor Farm.
• Lily Pond (elevation 16 feet) was one of two ponds dug out of marshy ground to provide drainage with the creation of Mountain Grove Cemetery in 1849.
• Mirror Lake (aka Mummy or Mummichaug Pond—elevation sea level) was created with the first expansion of Seaside Park in 1872. It provides essential drainage to a below-sea-level portion of the park, diked and drained in the manner of a Dutch polder. Originally it was surrounded by a trotting park or racetrack for horses. The colloquial name comes from a type of minnow that could be gathered here in abundance and used for bait.
• Horse Tavern Reservoir, aka Frenchtown Reservoir, survives as an intact earthen dam and dry lake bed in Elton Rogers Park, off Kaechele Place. A similar dry lake bed (constructed by the WPA in 1933) survives in Ninety Acres Park.

• The Pequonnock River, the most significant of Bridgeport's watercourses, is a 16.7 mile waterway that has its headwaters in the town of Monroe and, like all the city's waterways, flows downslope and south toward Long Island Sound. It is dammed above Boston/North Avenues to form Bunnell's Pond. Below the Berkshire Avenue bridge it becomes a tidal salt-water estuary. South of Stillman Street it is a navigable waterway with a dredged channel.
• The Rooster River is a stream in the western part of the city that forms part of the border between Bridgeport and Fairfield. Technically, the "Rooster River" is formed by the confluence of London Brook and Horse Tavern Brook at the rear of the Unquowa School property in Fairfield. Horse Tavern Brook, the larger of the two streams, has its source to the north of Canoe Brook Lake in Trumbull (which is formed by its waters). After flowing beneath the Trumbull Shopping Park, Horse Tavern Brook becomes known for a short stretch in the vicinity of Ox Hill in Bridgeport as "Ox Brook." Above Interstate 95, the Rooster River enters a salt marsh, becomes tidal, and becomes known as Ash Creek. In Colonial times the entire watercourse was known as the "Uncoway River;" the present name is thought to be a corruption of "Rossiter," the name of an early landowner.
• Island Brook is a stream that flows through the North End of Bridgeport that originates in Island Brook Park in Trumbull. It is dammed to impound both Lake Forest and Charcoal Pond. It flows into the Pequonnock River between Island Brook Avenue and River Street. The name is a corruption of "Ireland's Brook," so named from an early settler who resided along its banks on North Avenue.
• Old Mill Brook is formed by the confluence of two streams that flow down from the Nichols section of Trumbull. It is dammed into Success Lake, Stillman's Pond and Pembroke Lake. In its original state, it formed a tidal estuary from Boston Avenue south. It flows into Yellow Mill Pond. It takes its name from a water-powered gristmill erected on the north side of Boston Avenue in 1652.
• Bruce Brook has its source in the North End of Stratford, and forms a portion of Bridgeport's border with the Town of Stratford. It is dammed into Bruce Pond just above the New Haven Railroad tracks. It flows into Johnson's Creek immediately to the south of Lordship Boulevard. The stream takes its name from a Scottish settler who resided on the site of St. Michael's Cemetery in the early 19th century; prior to that time the stream was known as "Stony Brook."

Under the Köppen climate classification, Bridgeport has a temperate climate (Cfa), with long, hot summers, and cool to cold winters, with precipitation spread fairly evenly throughout the year. Bridgeport, like the rest of coastal Connecticut, lies in the broad transition zone between the colder continental climates of the northern United States and southern Canada to the north, and the warmer temperate and subtropical climates of the middle and south Atlantic states to the south.

The warm/hot season in Bridgeport is from mid-April through early November. Late day thundershowers are common in the hottest months (June, July, August, September), despite the mostly sunny skies. The cool/cold season is from late November though mid March. Winter weather is far more variable than summer weather along the Connecticut coast, ranging from sunny days with higher temperatures to cold and blustery conditions with occasional snow. Like much of the Connecticut coast and nearby Long Island, NY, some of the winter precipitation is rain or a mix and rain and wet snow in Bridgeport. Bridgeport averages about 34 inches (85 cm) of snow annually, compared to inland areas like Hartford and Albany which average 45–60 inches (110–150 cm) of snow annually.

Although infrequent, tropical cyclones (hurricanes/tropical storms) have struck Connecticut and the Bridgeport metropolitan area. Hurricane landfalls have occurred along the Connecticut coast in 1903, 1938, 1944, 1954 (Carol), 1960 (Donna), Hurricane Gloria in 1985, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Bridgeport lies in USDA garden zone 7a, averaging about 92 days annually with freeze. Coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone where so-called "subtropical indicator" plants and other broadleaf evergreens can successfully be cultivated. As such, Southern Magnolias, Needle Palms, Windmill palm, Loblolly Pines, and Crape Myrtles are grown in private and public gardens. Like much of coastal Connecticut, Long Island, NY, and coastal New Jersey, the growing season is rather long in Bridgeport—averaging 210 days from April 8 to November 5 according to the National Weather Service in Bridgeport.

The average monthly temperature ranges from 31.4 °F (−0.3 °C) in January to 75.7 °F (24.3 °C) in July. The record low is −7 °F (−22 °C), set on January 22, 1984, while the record high is 103 °F (39 °C), set on July 22 in 1957 and 2011.[1]

Precipitation averages 44.9 inches (1,140 mm) annually, and is somewhat evenly distributed throughout the year, with March and April the wettest months. Annual snowfall averages 33.6 inches (85 cm), falling almost entirely from December to March. As is typical of coastal Connecticut, snow cover does not usually last long, with an average of 33 days per winter with snow cover of at least 1 inch (2.5 cm).